


underwater

by shanlyrical



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alien Biology, Getting Together, Hermaphroditism, M/M, Other, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-04-27 17:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14430888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shanlyrical/pseuds/shanlyrical
Summary: The tale of a robot who cannot get wet and a merperson who goes to extreme personal lengths to be with him.





	underwater

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spellboundreader316](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spellboundreader316/gifts).



> This is my first time writing an Original Work. It’s not what we matched on, but I couldn’t resist. Please enjoy!

Applicable US federal law prevails on all NASA research vessels. This means that as long as I remain aboard the U.S.S. Galaxy Quest, pursuant to the Synthetic Sentient Rights Act of 2145, I am guaranteed equal protection under the law. This means that the law does not discriminate between me, an Alphabet 777-Series humanoid robot, and my human colleagues.

“Well, guess what, Adam? Looks like your turn again to make sure she doesn’t spring a hole and sink while we’re under!” Aforementioned human colleagues guffaw as they suit up and don their scuba gear.

Of course. It’s never _not_ my turn.

“No worries. She’s safe with me,” I say. Then I favor them with a good-natured sneer and a rude hand gesture. A male robot such as myself is expected to be vulgar to his male human colleagues on occasion. It helps to keep the proverbial gears of the social machine suitably lubricated, and I know more than most about machines.

Besides, if something _did_ go wrong with our ship, I’d be deader – and deader faster – than they would be. _They_ would just bob like living corks out there on the surface, waiting for a NASA Search  & Extraction Team to arrive.

Me, on the other hand…

Please understand. Although the law does not discriminate against robot and human, you see, the brine seas of the planet SBBJ-90806 (“Beebeejay” for short) most definitely _do_ discriminate. I’ve been built to withstand the rainstorms, lakes, and oceans of the planet Earth, but the water here would have me corroded beyond salvage in a matter of hours.

Even getting splashed is a one way ticket to discharge on grounds of permanent disability. Immersion would be suicide.

Yep, you heard right. I’m an aspiring marine biologist who can’t get wet.

The irony.

* * *

No marine biologist, not even the human ones, can spend all of their time underwater. My colleagues don’t even spend most of their time underwater. Rather, they spend most of their time in the lab.

And as usual, there’s plenty of work to be done. Did you know that we are still discovering new species in the Earth’s oceans? So imagine for a moment what it’s like on Beebeejay, and Beebeejay is only one of three living planets we are currently exploring. The task of describing and cataloguing its marine life is monumental…

…and much of it involves data entry. So. Much. Data. Entry. Did I mention the data entry?

But I’m a robot, after all. It’s what I _do_. It’s what I _live_ for.

I’m so caught up in my work, in fact, that I barely register it when she calls for me the first time. The second time, though, I definitely hear it, and by the third time, I’ve already out from below decks and leaning precariously over the ship’s railing toward the blue-green surface of the brine sea.

Her signature call is a trill produced in the larynx, followed by a rounded burble produced by pursing and then relaxing the lips. My colleagues have heard a recording of it and tell me they think is sounds like “Eeeee-BAH!”

I’ve decided that this means her name is Eva.

Beebeejay has its own native sentient life, its own “people.” We have a scientific name for them, and they must have another name for themselves, but the media has already dubbed them merpeople.

Yep, you heard right. Mermen and mermaids, like the Hans Christen Andersen fairytale.

Except my little mermaid must remain submerged. The planet’s very air is toxic to her. Only the males of the species are amphibious, capable of surfacing and surviving on dry land, and they have always been hostile to NASA researchers. (Just ask the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise if you don’t believe me. You’ll need a Ouija board.)

Eva, however, looks up at me curiously, like she would rise to be with me if only she could. And I gaze back down upon Eva’s lovely visage, yearning to swim alongside her.

We stay that way for 1.23 hours, unmoving, the line between saltwater and atmosphere an impenetrable barrier between us, until my colleagues return from their dive and scare her away.

“Aww! Adam and Eve!” they joke.

* * *

The Beebeejay merpeople are what we marine biologists (and aspiring marine biologists) call “sequential hermaphrodites.” They are born female but may transition to male under certain conditions; we refer to this as “protogyny.” Normally, there is only one merman at a time in any merschool. But if no breeding merman is present – or if the current one dies – the oldest mermaid will become the breeding merman. Sometimes, a particularly strong, healthy female will transition to male in order to challenge the reigning male for breeding rights.

I’m sure you can comprehend why we’ve had so little luck in our attempts to become friendly with mermen. They’re too busy fathering the next generation to socialize with researchers.

Until Eva.

I’ll never forget that day she rose from the water. It was another day with me left behind in the lab to progress our endless data entry, a day like any other, and I heard her signature trill. I rushed out to meet her…

…but she wasn’t alone. She broke the surface with my colleagues, who had, it seemed, aborted their dive early for this very reason.

Plus, “she” wasn’t a “she” anymore. “She” had changed her sex, and she hadn’t done it to challenge the incumbent merman for breeding rights.

She’d done it for me. Just so that she could be with me.

As you might expect, our story has captured the public’s imagination back on Earth. NASA is awash in new research funding as a consequence, and that means it’s a very nice time to be a NASA-funded marine biologist (or an aspiring marine biologist who’s recently hit on a most excellent topic for his PhD).

And of course, aside from everything he will be able to teach us, there are other benefits to having a real live Beebeejay merman working with the team. I know I shall never regret not being able to go underwater, for one thing – I can be with my beloved merman right where I am.

From now on, we will be Adam and Evan.

**Author's Note:**

> Reference: [Wikipedia article about sequential hermaphroditism in fish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_hermaphroditism)


End file.
